Visually Stunning Tour of New York

New York City is a study in contrasts: the grittiness of East Village with the quaintness of West Village, the calamity of Grand Central with the tranquility of Central Park, you get the idea.  These images attempt to capture New York in all its rawness.  Hidden New York thanks Peyton Carr (insta: peytoncarr) for permission to use these photos.

"Ghosts of Grand Central"

"Another Shot of the Flatiron Building 3.8.15"

"Happy Saint Patrick's Day"

"Sunset Shot from the Manhattan Bridge - Saturday Night Baby, Get Wild"

"The King of Bryant Park"

5 Amazing Pictures of Old New York



5.  NoHo On the Brink of World War II.  The picture below shows 1st and Bowery on July 12, 1938.  As the men appear to chat nonchalantly, war was brewing in Europe.  World War II broke out on September 1, 1939.  

 

 



4.  Lower East Side.  Workers dig on the corner of Delancey and Suffolk on July 29, 1908.  At the time, the area was a center of Jewish culture (note the signs in Hebrew language).  Just up the street was the celebrated Katz Deli, in the same area in now sits, though it was called Iceland & Katz at the time.  



 

3.  Flatiron Before It Was Flatiron.  The image below shows 23rd Street and Broadway in 1884.  In 1884, Grover Cleveland was elected president, the Washington Monument in DC was completed as the world's structure, and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published.  In 1901, ground was broken on the iconic Flatiron Building.

2.  Babe Ruth at the World Series.  Babe Ruth at Game 1 of the World Series in September 30, 1936 at the New York Polo Grounds.  The New York Giants beat the New York Yankees 6-1. 

1.  New York City During World War II.  The photo below is from May 18, 1940 at the corner of 6th avenue and 40th street in Manhattan.  The gentleman is holding a newspaper with the title "Nazi Army Now 75 Miles From Paris." 

Hidden New York Turns 30...

Months that is...This month, we are happy to celebrate Hidden New York's 2 and 1/2 year anniversary.  What started out as a small project devoted to exploring Manhattan's mysteries has grown into a blog receiving tens of thousands of page visits, praise in the New York Times and other notable publications, and recognition from some of Manhattan's most historical institutions, like the legendary Knickerbocker Hotel. 

To subscribe, please "like" our Facebook page: "Hidden New York."  And feel free to drop us a line if you have any suggestions or comments.  As they say, the best is yet to come.  -Kevin (kevinrschubert@gmail.com)



Manhattan skyline on the last day of summer 2014

 

The Slocum Tragedy Through 9/11 Eyes

Q:  A reader asks "I know that the 9/11 tragedy was the biggest loss of life in the city's history.  What event is the second biggest and are there any parallels to 9/11?"




September 11, 2001 Attacks

A: The Slocum tragedy in 1904 was the second biggest loss of life in New York City history and the worst inland-waters, peacetime tragedy in the nation’s history. On the clear summer day of June 15, 1904, more than 1,300 New Yorkers, mostly German immigrants from the congregation of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of East 6th Street in the heart of what was then Little Germany, boarded the Slocum, a triple-decker wooden ship built in 1891 and named after General Henry Warner Slocum (1827-1894) who commanded the extreme right line of the Union Army at Gettysburg, for the church’s seventeenth annual picnic in Locust Grove on Long Island.  


Slocum Ship (1904)

Donning their best attire and ready for a much anticipated day of picnics and dancing, the passengers waived goodbye to loved ones on shore as the ship left dock on the Third Street Pier in the East River around 9:30 am and headed north.  Less than 30 minutes into the journey, the ship caught fire, likely due to an errantly tossed match.  The fire ferociously spread, engulfing the ship in an inferno and leaving those on board with the difficult decision of remaining on the burning ship or jumping to their likely death by drowning in the East River.  In less than an hour, the tragedy claimed 1,021 lives.  Describing the scene of death and destruction, Coroner William O'Gorman, Jr. said no witness "will ever forget the scene.  It is the kind of thing that a man will wake up nights and see again before him in the darkness." 

 The events of 9/11 have awakened new interest in the Slocum tragedy and its comparison to 9/11.  While the Slocum Tragedy and 9/11 are two markedly different events ─ the former rooted in negligence, the latter in evil ─ there are many parallels between the two events.  Like 9/11, the Slocum tragedy brought out the best in the city.  Upon hearing the news, many rushed to the scene and risked their lives to help.  Lulu McGibbon, a switchboard operator who possessed the rare skill in 1904 of being able to swim, saved a dozen people in a series of daring rescues into the water before she passed out on shore in exhaustion.  Also like 9/11, there was an inspiring response to the tragedy in which many dipped into their pockets to help those in need.

Unlike 9/11, however, the Slocum tragedy was a "concentrated tragedy" in the words of several newspapers at the time.  Nearly all of those killed resided near each other in what was once called Little Germany, or “Kleindeutschland” to residents, a thoroughly German area that has its origins in the German stampede that began in the 1830s.  One observer in the 1850s remarked that Little Germany “has very little in common with the other parts of New York” and that there was not a single business there which was not run by Germans.  The tragedy accelerated the decline of Little Germany, which, at the time, was an expansive one-hundred block area north-south from Houston to 14^th Streets and east of Second Avenue to the East River. 

Slocum Memorial Fountain (Tompkins Sq Park)

Edward O’Donnell, author of Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum, told Hidden New York that ethnic enclaves like Little Germany have very short lifespans ─ they provide new immigrants with advantages such as family, friends, and customs, but over time as immigrants prosper they look to move to better neighborhoods.  “Many people in the neighborhood were likely considering a move elsewhere before the Slocum disaster, but the tragedy pushed them to take action.  Many people, even those who had not lost loved ones, said the neighborhood held too many dark memories of the fire,” said O’Donnell.  The Slocum Memorial Fountain in Tompkins Square Park commemorates the tragedy.  Dedicated in 1906 by the Sympathy Society of German Ladies, the nine foot upright stele is made of pink Tennessee marble with a relief of two children looking seaward and the words “They were Earth’s purest children, young and fair” over a lionhead spout.  Although one hundred years of acid rain and city air has faded the memorial considerably, the lionhead spout remains operational.

---

 

The Knickerbocker Hotel - Where Fitzgerald, Rockefeller Partied - Returns in Fall 2014

Secret Passageway to the Knickerbocker Hotel at the Times Square Subway Station

Exiting the Times Square subway station yesterday, I noticed an obscure doorway bearing a masonry plaque "Knickerbocker" that looked like it had been boarded up for years.  Could it be that this once led to the iconic Knickerbocker Hotel?  The city’s subways began construction in 1900 and retain certain oddities of the past such as this one hidden doorway still exist.  It once connected the Times Square subway station to the rear lobby of the Knickerbocker Hotel, which operated from 1906-1920, through a corridor lined with settees and heraldic banners.  Although the passageway has since been severed, the façade of the fifteen-story Beaux-Arts hotel built by John Jacob Astor (1864-1912) remains largely in tact.  

Knickerbocker Hotel today

 
The Knickerbocker Hotel was a fashionable hotel of its time, with a popular Knickerbocker bar which has been called the “Forty-second Street Country Club” because of the wealthy patrons that frequented it.  The bar is said to have been the birthplace of the modern martini.  A New York Times article celebrating the hotel’s opening commented on its opulence, including the “tapestries and beamed ceiling” modeled after the French Chateau de Fountainbleau in the main dining room which accommodated 2,000 guests.  The hotel had 556 sleeping rooms which rented on average for $3.25 per day.  Enrico Caruso, a world famous opera singer, was a long time resident of the hotel.  F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have once went on a three-day bender there, and John D. Rockefeller and his friends from Wall Street ordered martinis from the cocktail bar. 

Knickerbocker Hotel Dining Room

 Fitzgerald opens the second chapter of his 1920 novel This Side of Paradise with a scene at the bar.  “The Knickerbocker bar, beamed upon by Maxfield Parrish’s jovial, colorful ‘Old King Cole,’ was well crowded,” Fitzgerald writes.  The “Old King Cole,” a thirty-foot 1906 oil painting by artist Maxfield Parish, was commissioned by Astor for the Knickerbocker bar.  The painting has since been moved to the St. Regis Hotel in midtown Manhattan where it currently hangs as the focal point of a lobby bar.

Prohibition laws enacted in 1919 slowed the hotel’s business in its restaurants and bars and the building was converted to office space in 1920.  In December 2011, FelCor Lodging Trust purchased the building and is currently restoring it to a 330 room four-plus star hotel which will open in early fall of this year under the Knickerbocker name.

Stephen Schafer, Vice President of Investor Relations at FelCor, told Hidden New York that the new Knickerbocker Hotel will keep the same exterior but add a completely new interior.  “The entire exterior will remain the same and we have already completed the restoration work, which was minimal since the building was in good condition.  The interior was gutted and taken down to floor plates, so the interior will be completely new.”  Schafer also said the calling card of the hotel will be a 3,000 square foot rooftop space open to the public that will be “the only outdoor, rooftop bar where you can watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve or watch the hustle of Times Square.”

 

The Unknown Story of the Real James Bond in Manhattan

Ian Fleming (1908-1964), author of the Bond novels

Who was the real James Bond?  Was it someone Bond author Ian Fleming met during WWII?  Or perhaps a better version of Fleming, the chain-smoking, oversexed and underachieving spy turned author who suffered severe depression because his visions for himself never matched reality.  While the answer is surely some of each, one double agent whom Fleming shadowed one night during the war was a strong inspiration.  In rare documentary footage viewed by Hidden New York, Fleming said his first book Casino Royale was based on his experiences at the Casino Estoril and the spies he met there.
 

Dusko Popov (1912-1981), double agent during WWII

During World War II, neutral Portugal became a weigh station for espionage activity.  Enter Dusko Popov (1912-1981), a Nazi spy turned by the Allies to work for the British.  In August of 1941, the day before Popov was due to depart for Manhattan on what the Nazi’s believed to be an intelligence gathering mission, Popov was shadowed at the Casino Estoril by none other than Ian Fleming.  The British were keeping tabs on Popov to see where his loyalty really lied, but Popov instantly picked up on the fact he was being shadowed by the clumsy Fleming.  According to his autobiography Spy/Counterspy, An incident broke out at the Baccarat table.  Popov became irritated by an arrogant player who placed enormous bets knowing others could not match him.  Popov trumped him with a $50,000 bet to the dismay of all around, including Fleming who was watching from a distance.  According to Popov, Fleming turned the “green of bile” before flashing a sly smile to Popov when the player backed down.  This incident was memorialized in Fleming’s first book Casino Royale (1953).    

Casino Royale (1953), the first Bond novel

The next day Popov headed for Manhattan.  His assignment was to gather all information he could about the American outpost of Pearl Harbor and report it back to the Nazis.  Arriving in New York, Popov dropped his bags off at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel before heading to a meeting with the FBI warning them of the impending attack and providing them a questionnaire on Pearl Harbor supplied by his Nazi handlers.  The FBI, however, brushed off Popov as an untrustworthy playboy who they felt was still secretly working for the Nazis.  Popov claims in his book to have had a confrontational meeting with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.  While Popov’s claims are shocking and have been denied by the FBI, there are many indications they are true.  Powerful people in British intelligence have backed Popov’s claims, including Sir John Masterman, the chair of Britain’s Double Agent Committee who recruited Popov.  Popov was even awarded the prestigious Order of the British (OBE) award for his service.  And the FBI has every reason to dispute Popov’s claims to avoid the blame for not heeding his warning on Pearl Harbor.

Brushed aside by the FBI and unable to return to Europe because the Nazi’s believed he was on a fact-finding mission for them, Popov was effectively marooned in Manhattan for nearly a year.  In the Big Apple, Popov did what he did best – enjoy life and live a playboy lifestyle.  True to the Bond form, Popov dressed in expensive clothes, rented a lavish apartment with a wrap-around terrace at 61^st and Park, went gambling, smoked and drank heavily, took beach trips to Miami and ski trips to Part City, Utah, and, of course, loved women.  His nights passed in a “blur of sex and alcohol.”

Daniel Craig (1968-), current Bond actor

He had numerous female companions, including most significantly Hollywood actress Simone Simon, whom he escorted to the finest restaurants and nightclubs in New York City.  “[Simone and I] became regular fixtures in the fashionable restaurants,” Popov writes, “an item of inventory in [Manhattan nightclubs] El Moracco and the Stork Club.”  But Popov, codenamed “Tricycle” by the British, was also serious about his work and put his life on the line many times for the Allies.  Had his Nazi handlers known he was working for the Allies, Popov would have faced most certain death.

In 1972, John Masterman, former chair of the British XX Committee that ran Popov published a history of the cloak and dagger committee that included a copy of the entire Pearl Harbor questionnaire that agent “Tricycle” had passed to the FBI with a stern conclusion that it represented a “somber but unregarded warning of the subsequent attack upon Pearl Harbor.”  Popov wrote his memoirs Spy/Counterspy just two years after the Masterman book, believing Masterman had opened the door to discussing his clandestine operations and discussing his meeting with Hoover and warning about Pearl Harbor.  Clarence Kelly, Hoover’s successor as FBI director, denied that Popov and Hoover had ever met and insisted that the FBI never had information that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor.  Popov set off on a book endorsement tour in which he was hailed as the real James Bond and glamourized by the media for his attractive wife over thirty years his junior.  When he died on August 10, 1981, forty years to the day when the then 29-year old spy left for New York City to warn the FBI about Pearl Harbor, his widow said “He lived how he wanted to live.”  Negatively viewed by many as a mere playboy, Popov once responded, “When you love life, good wine, good company, and can still do good serious work, it is not being a playboy it is living life to the full.”   

Renwick's Ruins

Renwick Ruins today

The majestic ruins of the Smallpox Hospital, sometimes called "Renwick's Smallpox Hospital," are one of the most eerily romantic places in New York.  Situated on Roosevelt Island, just a five minute gondola ride from midtown east, the 100 bed Gothic revival hospital was built in 1856 by famed architect (and Home Alone "southbend shovel slayer" look-alike) James Renwick Jr. who also designed St. Patrick's Cathedral.

James Renwick Jr. (1818-1895), architect of the hospital

Roosevelt Island, formerly called Blackwell's Island, is an island in the East River just a few hundred feet off the banks of Manhattan.  Although now it is mostly residential, it formerly was the place New York City sent its outcast - those with smallpox, mental illnesses, or criminals.

The Smallpox Hospital appears to have been a success.  According to a report by the New York Commissioner's of Health only 267 people died from small pox in New York City 1862, about half the number of smallpox deaths in the preceeding few years when the hospital began.  Nearly all of those diagnosed with smallpox went to the Smallpox Hospital for treatment, though it was not mandatory.  Once there, boarders paid a fee of approximately $5/week and many died within a matter of days. 

In 1872, the New York Times reported "scandalous chicanery" associated with the hospital, including overcharging boarders and allowing a slimy undertaker named Mr. Slevin to monopolize burials of those who died there.  For example, Mr. Frieling, a healthy German, was stricken with smallpox and went to the hospital in early February 1872.  When he died the following month, nearly all the money he had on him was stolen.  In addition, the slimy undertaker Mr. Slevin charged his family more than $300 for the funeral, including such fees as $1 for his brother see the dead's face and $2 to the captain of the "Hope," the boat that carried the dead to the grave site.  In 1875, the hospital closed and became a training center for nurses.  It is unclear whether the scandal played a part in its closing.  In the 1950s, the training center closed and the building fell into disrepair.  According to the staff at Roosevelt Island, it became a hangout for vandals and mischievous youth who stole and graffitied the building.



Smallpox Hospital circa 1875 (Roosevelt Island was called Blackwell's Island)

The hospital is now a shadow of its former self.  Although the frame remains in tact, the roof has vanished.  According to the staff at Roosevelt Island, Renwick built the hospital with a copper roof, a rarity given the expense of the material.  At some point in the 1970s, the roof was stolen. 

The public may walk the perimeter but the hospital is now fenced off.  The staff at Roosevelt Island said that there have been recent discussions to build a larger building open to the public around the hospital ruins, but to leave the inner shell in tact.  Something similar was done to a nearby insane asylum which has been built into a fancy residential complex.  In any event, the Smallpox Hospital is one of the most romantic ruins of New York City, offering an eerie glimpse into a forgotten past.

View of Manhattan from the ruins today

.

Skidmore House: Gem of the Bowery







Intersection near Skidmore House (4th and Bowery) - 1907

The landmark Skidmore House at Bowery and 4th Street is one of the last vestiges of the Bowery's vivid past.  The Bowery area was America's most notorious skid row in the early 19th century, frequented by the city's most prominent derelicts - prostitutes, drunkards, vagrants, etc.  The Encyclopedia of New York City notes that early in the twentieth century the Bowery was such an infamous place of squalor, alcoholism, and wretchedness that even prostitutes gravitated to other neighborhoods.  "No other skid row in the United States attracted so many vagrants or so much notoriety."  Also distinct of the area was the above-ground train tracks above the Bowery that have since been taken down.





Skidmore House - 2013

Thankfully, the Bowery area has entered a resurgence in the last decade and is one of the city's most desirable rental areas.  Built in 1845, the Skidmore House is a Greek-revival townhouse that was formerly home to dry goods merchant Samuel Tredwell Skidmore (1801-1881), his wife Angelina, and their eight children.  When the Skidmore's moved into the "Bond-street area" as it was called at that time (now it's called "NoHo"), the area was one of the wealthiest in the city.  For example, when Charles Dickens visited Manhattan in 1842, he was entertained at the townhomes across the street according to the New York Times.

 Samuel's cousin Seabury Tredwell lived four houses down at what has been turned into the Merchant Museum, the only perfectly preserved 19th century townhome in the city according to the museum.  When Samuel climbed the 8 steps from street level to the townhome's entrance back in the nineteenth century, he was greeted by his wife and 8 children.  Like many townhomes of the period, the Skidmore house contains a "jewelbox" area between the outside door and the door into the house.  It was here that guests would announce themselves and wait to see whomever they were calling on.  The ground floor was likely used by the Skidmore's for their day-to-day living.  The fourth floor, the top floor of the building, was likely a servant's quarter and storage attic.  The Tredwell house four doors down employed four female servants that worked for around $3/month, according to the staff at the Merchant House.  The Skidmore family likely used the first floor for welcoming guests to dinner parties or social gatherings.  "Sociables" were common at the time and Samuel Skidmore frequently wrote about them in his diary:


"April 28, 1858.  I hurried home as I had to go to a confounded 'Sociable' at the Tredwells'.  Ben & I went in about 9 1/2 PM.  Not a great many there.  The evening was decidedly stiff but on the whole passably good for a 'sociable.'"

Samuel Skidmore died in the townhome in 1881 and the family subsequently left the townhome in 1883.  At this time, the once-coveted area around the Bowery had fallen into disarray where it remained for most of the twentieth century.


Skidmore House (right) and Merchant Museum (left) - 2004

The Landmark Preservation Committee awarded the Skidmore House landmark status in 1970 describing it as "unusually impressive."  Little is known about what happened to Skidmore House from 1883-1970, but the staff at the Merchant's Museum said it was likely rented to various people.  The ground floor is said to have been rented by the Alpha Mu Sigma fraternity of Cooper Union from 1962-1965 until a fire displaced the fraternity and seriously damaged the building.  Skidmore House fell into extreme disarray in the latter half of the twentieth century with the roof actually imploding around 2004.  During this period, the house is said to have been occupied by vagrant squatters who stole some of the building's unique features, including a charming "Skidmore" bell that once adorned the building's façade, according to the staff at the Merchant House.  The Landmark Preservation Committee sued the building's owner, and in 2004 won a Court order that the building be repaired. 


Skidmore House's neighboring rental building (2 Cooper) and its pool

The building was subsequently leased to a development group that committed to repairing the building in exchange for a favorable zoning ruling that allowed it to build a 134 unit condo building next door.  In 2011, the building's interior was gutted and 10 apartment rental units - all unique to each other - were built.  In 2013, an average one bedroom rented for about $4500/month for roughly 500 square feet.  But the best perk of all was that all residents of Skidmore House are entitled to use the amenities in the neighboring 2 Cooper high rise apartment building.  2 Cooper includes a pool on the top floor with 360 degree views of the city.  It is arguably the best pool in all of Manhattan.

The pool scene at 2 Cooper on a hot summer day in 2013

Origins of Chelsea...and Santa Clause

Moore's poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"

A version of this story was published in the New York Times on December 15, 2013.

Clement Moore is widely recognized for writing "A Visit from St. Nicholas," the iconic Christmas poem that defined many modern conceptions of Santa Clause and famously begins "'Twas the night before Christmas..."  Moore is less known for his role in developing the Manhattan village of Chelsea, which has its origins in Moore's carving up his mansion and farmland named "Chelsea" that spanned modern day 8th to 10th avenues and between 19th and 24th streets, into lots to sell to wealthy New Yorkers.

As the city of New York grew north, a commission was established to evaluate how best to establish the streets and avenues of the burgeoning city.  That commission laid out a plan for a grid system of streets and avenues in the Commissioner's Plan of 1811.  Not all New Yorkers celebrated the plan, including Clement Moore who was so outraged that he penned a vehement sixty page opposition addressed to fellow land owners impacted by the plan, noting the plan wrongfully deprived land owners of land required to make room for the new streets and avenues, forced land owners' fences to be torn down and put back up, and even caused some (himself included) to tear down their beloved apple trees in the process.

Clement Moore (1779-1863)

Beyond his distaste for the "cutting and carving up of the property of others," Moore slammed the plan as de-beautifying Manhattan by its call to flatten the Manhattan terrain.  These commissioners "would have cut down the seven hills of Rome," according to Moore.  While the commissioners attempted to appease property owners with the gain in financial value to their land that would result from the grid, Moore laughed at this notion as pure speculation rooted not in facts but some "spirit of divination."

As all New Yorkers know, Moore's rhetoric did not stop the grid from being implemented.  Left with no choice but to embrace the grid, Moore began the development of Chelsea around 1830 by dividing up tracts of land for sale.  One of the earliest maps of Chelsea is Moore's 1835 map of property showing the developmental plan of Chelsea from 8th to 10th avenues and 19th to 24th streets.  Moore envisioned Chelsea as an upstanding residential neighborhood, and included in the deed covenants architectural requirements, lot front coverage and setbacks, and provisions maintaining the land for residential use and prohibiting use for stables, trade, or manufacturing.



"Map of Property Belonging to C.C. Moore at Chelsea 1835"

Moore also donated land from his apple orchard to the Episcopal Diocese for construction of the General Theological Seminary.  Moore required that the Episcopal Diocese issue him a mortgage for $7,320, the estimated value of the full square block of Manhattan real estate from 9th to 10th avenues and in between 20th and 21st streets, with instructions that the Diocese pay him principal and interest if the land is ever used for purposed other than a seminary.  Moore became the seminary's first professor of Greek and Hebrew literature.  A stodgy academic, Moore published such works as the two-volume tome "A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew language."

It is ironic that Moore, perhaps the father of Chelsea and a rigid academic, also penned the Christmas poem which engendered many of the modern conceptions of Santa Clause, the "jolly old elf" with a reindeer-pulled sleigh who makes his Christmas Eve ride.  Moore wrote the poem when he was just 24 to read to his children as entertainment.  According to legend, Moore penned the poem on Christmas Eve of 1822 after he took a snowy sleigh ride home from market in Greenwich Village driven by a roly-poly Dutchman, who served as his inspiration for St. Nick.  The poem was published anonymously in the New York newspaper the Sentinel in 1823, perhaps so that Moore's academic reputation would not be diminished by a silly Christmas poem he once dismissed as a "mere trifle," but Moore subsequently claimed credit for the work more than a decade later.

House of Death

 

West 10th street in Greenwich Village is perhaps the most beautiful street in all of Manhattan.  Before the Civil War, the townhomes around Washington Square Park were a fashionable place to live.  In 1857, a Greek Revival townhome was built at 14 W. 10th St.  According to New York lore, it is the site of more than 22 deaths and the most haunted location in Manhattan.

26 years ago today, on November 1, 1987, Joel Steinberg, a prominent criminal attorney, bludgeoned his 6 year old daughter Lisa to death on the second floor in one of the most shocking crimes in New York history.  According to Court records, Lisa endured 6 years of physical and psychological abuse from Mr. Steinberg's sadomasochistic fantasies until one night he took it too far.  The trial became a national news sensation with the house being dubbed the House of Death.

But the history of the House of Death goes back much farther.  Mark Twain lived here from 1900-1901 and allegedly called the house his most beloved residence.  He lived here when he was 65, but threw lavish parties here.  Reports have indicated that he still haunts the parlor floor of the house.  When Broadway actress Jan Bryant Bartell moved in the 1950s, she felt and saw abnormal presences - saw ghosts, heard noises, felt paranormal activity.  She was so convinced by what she saw that she changed her views on the paranormal and even published a book about her experiences in the home called Spindrift: Spray from a Psychic Sea.



In it, Bartell recounts that the paranormal activity she felt caused her so much concern that she spoke with the long time superintendent about whether he had any complaints.  According to the superintendent, a mother and daughter in the 1930s reported visiting the home when night before the lamps were lit and seeing Mark Twain, wild white hair and all, on the parlor floor.  Apparently he told them, "My name is Clemens and I got problems here I gotta settle." 

Turtle Bay Treasures

Which New York neighborhood has the wealthiest property?  The high-rise coops on 5th avenue overlooking Central Park certainly come to mind.  But let's not forget the townhomes surrounding Gramercy Park, including the "finest house in New York" at 19 Gramercy Park South.  But after a stroll through Turtle Bay (the area of midtown Manhattan between 43rd and 53rd street and east of Lexington Ave) certainly has "swank."

Overlooking the Hudson River at 1 Sutton Place (near 57th st) is the home of Teresa Heinz, heiress to the Heinz fortune and wife of Secretary of State John Kerry.  The home was built for the wealthy Mrs. William Vanderbilt, who was induced to move from her 5th avenue brownstone to Sutton Place by developers of the new Sutton Place enclave.  The goal was for Vanderbilt to act as "window dressing" to get people to move further east to Sutton Place.  Next door, at 3 Sutton Place, is the home of the Secretary General of the UN.  According to a 1994 New York times, a 2 bedroom, 2 bath home at 20 Sutton Place was on the market for $335,000, quite a steal in today's market.


Down the street from the Heinz mansion, is the former home of John D. Rockefeller, at 1 Beekman Place (near 50th st overlooking the East River).  Beekman Street is one of the wealthiest and smallest in all of Manhattan.   Irving Berlin, the composer of "White Christmas" fame lived for 40 years at 17 Beekman place until he passed away at the age of 101.  It now houses the Luxemburg government in New York City.

A few feet away is 39 Beekman place, a 5,300 square foot, 5 story townhome that appears to be valued at $7.3 million.  Interestingly, Aristotle Onassis purchased the home in 1968 for his new bride Jackie Kennedy.  The paparazzi set up shop full time next door, and the new couple never moved in.  The image to the rest shows the back side of the mansion.  It has plenty of outdoor space to barbeque and take in the scenic East River views, overlooking Queens and Roosevelt Island.

Finally, just east of 58th and Sutton Place leads to Riverview Terrace, shown to the bottom right.  It is one of the most private cul-de-sacs in all of Manhattan, complete with a private guard gate and cobble stonesstreet not open to the public.  It even

has private garages for each of the six row homes.  Who knew Manhattan had a private street?  The homes are elegant beauties, each in their own way.  A 1921 New York Times article described the homes at Riverview Terrace as "settled in the 1870s by nice people who were erratic enough to prefer a view of the river to a more convenient location."  Looks like they had it right, and the location sure makes for a nice escape from the hustle and bustle of the city.  Turtle Bay has many lush properties to brag about, but the homes at Riverview Terrace may just be the best.




 

The Ghosts of West Village

On a crisp fall day, I decided to check out some of West Village's charm and past.  It certainly did not disappoint, and by the end of my walk I was surprised how little I knew about the neighborhood and how much I had missed on my many trips through it.  First stop was Marie's Crisis Café at 59 Grove St (off 7th avenue).  It's currently a vibrant piano bar that usually stays open until the wee hours of the morning, but it has an interesting past. 


Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense (1776), died there in 1809.  After the American Revolution, Paine moved to France and became actively involved in the French Revolution.  He returned to New York City in 1802 and lived at 59 Grove Street until his death in 1809.  He became ostracized for his later works denouncing institutionalized religion, and only six people attended his funeral.

The plaque on the wall that the two people are looking at in the picture contains his epitaph: "The world is my country, to do good is my religion, and all mankind are my brethren."  The spot was turned into a brothel from 1850-1890, and later a speakeasy during prohibition.  The bar was renamed in honor of Paine's "Crisis" pamphlets during the American Revolutionary War.


Just down the street from Marie's Crisis Café is the narrowest house in New York.  At just 9.5 feet wide and 30 feet deep, 75 1/2 Bedford Street is a house on a diet.  Despite its small size, it was purchased in 2010 for the hefty price of $2 million dollars.  One year later, it was put on the market for $4.3 million.  The home's unique size is due to the fact the lot originally served as a carriage entrance to the adjacent homes' stables.  The house also served as the home of actor Cary Grant, who apparently didn't suffer claustrophobia.

A short walk west led to the White Horse Tavern, yet another gem in the neighborhood at 567 Hudson St.  The bar opened in 1880, but gained its fame during the 1950s and 60s when Bohemian authors frequented the watering hole.  According to legend n November 8, 1953, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, whose works include "Do not got gentle into that good night," drank 18 whiskies there before dying the next morning at the nearby Chelsea Hotel.  Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Hunter Thompson also frequented the Tavern.  The next time you are in West Village, take a look around.  The ghosts of West Village are everywhere! 

 

1939 World's Fair

It's not very common that I find eye-witness testimony about the material I write about.  Writing about events that took place decades or centuries a good offers an interesting glimpse into the past, but few are still around to tell about it.

This past weekend at my brother's wedding, I met an 88-year-old woman who told me she visited New York City once, 74 years ago.  The year was 1939 and she took a Greyhound bus from South Carolina to New York City to visit the 1939 World's Fair.  What was this event that was apparently compelling enough for her to endure a 3 day bus ride?

Souvenir Booklet of 1939 World's Fair

Stamp showing the "Perisphere"

People Entering the Perisphere

 The 1939 World's Fair took place on the current site of the Met's Stadium in Queens.  Over 44 million people attended the event.  At the center of the grounds was the "Perisphere" a dome-shaped construction which become symbolic of the 1939 World's Fair.  The 180 foot diameter dome featured "Democracity," a model city of the future, which was viewed from a moving escalator.

The 1200+ acre grounds for the event were divided into zones, including a Transportation zone, Communications and Business Zone, Food Zone, and Government Zone, with a focus on the future. 
The Transportation zone, for example, featured new automobiles from GM and Chrysler which could be viewed in a room cooled by air-conditioning, a novelty at the time.  The purpose of the event was to uplift the human spirit following the Great Depression of the 1930s and to strive to bring global harmonization to a world on the brink of warfare.

Grounds of the 1939 World's Fair

Plane Crash Into the Empire State Building

Long before the tragedy of 9/11, New York was shook by another plane crash.  On the foggy morning of Saturday July 28, 1945, just two weeks before the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II, the pilot of a US B-25 bomber became disorientated on his was to a routine personnel drop at Newark airport and crashed into the Empire State Building. 

The death toll was only 14 but could have been much higher had it occurred on a weekday when more people were at work.  The crash occurred at 9:40 am and carved a 18 x 20 foot opening in the Empire State Building, engulfing the building in flames.







One of the plane's engines landed in the elevator car, sending the elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver plummeting 75 stories (1000 feet).  Miraculously, she survived the fall, and her fall is recorded in the Guiness Book of World Records as the longest survived elevator fall.